


Mischievousness Machinations

by badboyfriend



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics), Impulse (Comics), Red Robin (Comics), Robin (Comics), Superboy (Comics), Young Justice (Comics)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:13:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25980394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badboyfriend/pseuds/badboyfriend
Summary: Tim Drake is hot on the trail of a bad guy who kidnapped a baby.
Kudos: 22





	Mischievousness Machinations

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first attempt at writing fan fiction. I loved the old Young Justice comic in the 90s and I tried to convey a sense of fun with each of the main characters.
> 
> Please give me your feedback!

The computer wouldn’t work.

Tim sat staring, one eyebrow raised. His right hand gripping the mouse, moving it. His masked eyes watching the screen, expecting to see the cursor conform to his movements of the mouse…but nothing happening. Curiosity piqued; total vexation imminent. He was rarely moody, but get between Tim Drake and his data entry of new case files and watch out.

And boy, did he have a large case file to enter! Why, he was hot off patrol, even still wearing his Robin uniform. And this was one for the books—er, for the computer, rather. It wasn’t every day a teen sidekick went off on his own to investigate the disappearance of the infant son of Gotham City’s Mayor’s Chief of Staff’s secretary’s nephew.

Or was it Gotham’s Mayor’s Chief of Staff’s secretary’s niece? Tim couldn’t remember now. And why couldn’t he remember? Because this FREAKing computer wasn’t doing what he NEEDED it to do. Tim gave the mouse another movement, his lips tightening into a beleaguered frown.

His accounts of the evening needed to be logged! It was the way he always did things. You have to keep an activity log of your investigations and any leads you may come across. Even closed cases. There may one day come a time when you need to look back to connect some future dots. The kidnapper of this infant could someday be the next Joker. Or Two-Face. Or Kite-Man. But probably not Kite-Man.

Frustrated, Tim used the back of his hand to swat the mouse across the desk. It flung quickly and turned over once, revealing the night’s complication: a tiny sliver of paper stuck over the mouse sensor. This was what had been blocking the cursor! Mouse in hand, Tim grabbed for his desk tweezers. He could have easily used his utility belt tweezers. He had tweezers in every room. One never knew when a handy pair of tweezers might be needed, and Tim was always prepared in that way.

Holding the mouse carefully, Tim slowly tweezed the paper back. It was actually a torn off shred of a yellow post-it note covering the mouse sensor. Dropping the mouse back on the mousepad, the cursor happily flying about the screen now, Tim felt relief.

But then, faintly…a giggle. He turned to look but his bedroom was empty. Or so it seemed.

The giggling had been silenced, replaced by a soft shuffling noise coming from his closet. Tweezers in hand, Tim catapulted himself out of his desk chair and into the air, throwing the tweezers in mid leap—launching them with great ferocity at the switch on the wall which controlled the overhead light. The tweezers hit the light switch precisely and the lights turned off.

Now in total darkness, Tim landed in a menacing crouch in the middle of the bedroom, his Robin cape laid out behind him and two Batarangs between his fingers. He was ready to strike. The giggles and shuffles from the closet had gone quiet. The trespasser knew they were caught.

Rising in the darkness, Tim switched on his infrared night goggles (part of his mask, obviously), and walked to the closet door. With his non-Bataranged hand he gripped the doorknob. Whatever lay beyond would be ravaged by his Batarangs. The perpetrator stood no chance now.

The door creaked open, and Tim immediately saw not one but two figures. One tall and built, the other small and lithe, no more than a child. The bigger one seemed to be gripping the child-form in a way to shut it up. Obviously, Tim deduced, the giggling came from the smaller form, while the bigger one worked to stifles its cries.

With only glowing outlines showing up in Tim’s goggles, he squinted to try and make the forms clearer. But there was no need. The smaller form quickly and excitedly got free of the larger ones grasp and made its way to Tim.

“Hey!!!” it cried out, a voice which Tim immediately recognized.

Almost as soon as the child-like form had freed itself from the big one’s hold, it was on top of Tim in an embrace. With two small arms wrapped around his midsection and a pouf of unruly and thick hair tickling his chin, Tim eased his aggressive stance. No longer aggressive, but plenty annoyed.

“Are you guys kidding me right now?” he asked the two lurkers.

“No,” the little one responded, through a wide grin.

The closet light turned on revealing Conner Kent inside. Bart Allen released his hug on Tim and the very next second was at Tim’s computer. “It was my idea,” he announced. “Kon thought it was stupid, but I knew this would be a good one.”

Kon walked out of the closet, brushing past Tim. “Come on, Boy Wonder. Let’s go catch a movie.”

Tim rolled his eyes. “I can’t hang out tonight, I’m on a case.”

“To catch a predator?” Kon prodded.

“Oh, I love cases!” Bart said. “Is it The Joker? I bet it’s The Joker. It’s always The Joker. I fought him once.”

Tim flipped the overhead light back on, and collected his desk tweezers from the spot where they’d fallen. “It’s the missing baby of one of Gotham’s Mayor’s cabinet member’s secretary’s family members. Guys, really, I have work to do.”

“I bet it’s The Joker!”

Kon moved to Bart and put a hand on the kid’s shoulder. “Imp, shut up for a second.”

“It’s not The Joker. I mean, I don’t _think_ it’s him anyway.” Tim moved to his computer and sat at the desk. “I need to get this done, guys. Please, some privacy.”

Kon cocked his head to the side. “But I thought you were trying to find a baby.”

“That’s exactly what I’m doing.”

Kon knelt to one knee next to Robin. “Dude, you’re looking at a computer.”

Tim rolled his eyes and tilted his head back. “I have to enter my leads into the case file first.”

“Why don’t we just go get the baby-snatcher? We could get this done tonight.”

To which, Bart raised both arms, flexing his non-existent muscles and cheerily declared, “yeah, Young Justice!”

Tim shook his head.

* * *

  
The house was big. The lights inside were on. Tim looked through his binoculars, trying to get a glimpse inside but there was no movement so far as he could tell. Kon and Bart, now suited up as Superboy and Impulse, stood to each side of Robin.

“Want me to rush inside? I can rush inside. Nobody’d even notice,” Bart proclaimed, braggy.

“You’d bust over a lamp or something,” Kon told him. “Tim’s right: this needs to be handled carefully. I’ll just use my x-ray vision.”

“Nobody’s using x-ray vision. I showed you my leads. This is only one possible location for the kidnapper. There were five houses total, which means this one might be full of innocent people.” Tim’s investigation had been very thorough, but the leads had been spotty at best and more information was needed.

A rush of wind startled Tim and Kon as Bart suddenly disappeared and then reappeared again within seconds. Tim looked at the boy questioningly, assuming his orders had been defied.

“I got ice cream!” Bart responded quickly, showing both his friends the bowl, which was large and had to be held with two hands. Half of the frosty treat had already been eaten in the three seconds it took the speedster to leave and return. Hot fudge coated his lips.

Tim returned to his work, looking at the house through his binoculars. Kon stuck a finger in the ice cream and scooped out a little for himself.

“I got it,” Tim announced. “Upstairs, fourth window on the right. One pane of glass is missing.”

Kon and Bart looked the direction of Tim’s binoculars. “Yeah, so?” Kon questioned.

“So…” Tim continued, “there’s a slight edge there that’s still intact and just slightly jagged. Indicates a possible stru—.”

“There was a struggle,” Kon finished.

“I just said no x-ray vision!” Tim protested. Then, defeated, “what do you see?”

* * *

Inside the house, the team of young heroes made their way from room to room. As Tim and Kon entered one room, Bart would come back from reconnoitering another. Until finally they reached the room of the struggle Kon had seen.

Furniture tossed about, and various items strewn everywhere. Tim looked at the broken window he’d spotted. But Bart grabbed his arm and diverted his attention to another window, on the other side of the room, this one on a wall that wasn’t easily visible to them when they’d been spying from the woods. This window was completely smashed out. Tim walked to it and looked out.

On the ground below was a kite.

* * *

“I totally knew it was Crazy Quilt,” Bart told them. They were in Redbird, Tim’s car. Bart in the backseat, with Kon in the front passenger and Tim driving.

“It’s Kite-Man, Bart,” Tim answered.

“Yea, him,” Bart replied. “I knew it. It had to be.”

“So what’s the plan?” Kon asked Tim.

“We’re going to Kite-Man’s lair and we’re going to rescue the baby.” Tim turned the car on a corner headed down a dark street. It was midnight in Gotham City, and while many places in the city were just starting to heat up at that hour, there were just as many places which remained dark.

“Wait, Kite-Man actually has a lair?” Kon asked.

Tim nodded and made another turn.

“I knew it,” Bart said, convinced.

* * *

Tim drove Redbird up to Kite-Lair, and stopped just outside the driveway.

“Kite-Man’s lair has a driveway?” Kon chuckled. “This guy is pretty lame.”

“He’s a super-criminal.”

“Why did he even take the baby, anyway?” Bart asked from the backseat.

Tim tossed back a newspaper to his younger friend. The headline at the top read in giant letters “ **RANSOM DEMANDS FOR MISSING BABY**.”

Bart held the paper up and read aloud, “Milk prices are dropping.”

“Look at the top, Bart,” Tim pointed.

Bart looked in Tim’s direction, “I know, I was just saying.” Then he read out loud the part of the story Tim had pointed to. “…kidnapper demands $1,000,000 for the infant. The family of the infant, Russell Mayo, aged two asks GCPD for…” he trailed off.

“Mayo…” Kon repeated. “That sounds familiar.”

“Mayo, yuck,” Bart agreed.

Tim looked at Kon, who was now looking out the window, thinking. “Tim, isn’t one of your big bads named Mayo?” Kon asked, once again facing his friend.

Perplexed, Tim raised an eyebrow. “…Mayo…you don’t mean…?”

Both boys looked at each other. In unison, they both announced the name of the villain whose real name was now part of this puzzle.

* * *

“So the missing baby is actually the infant son of the Condiment King, one Mitchell Mayo. How did I miss that?” Tim was clearly disappointed in himself.

Kon gently punched Tim’s shoulder. “Some detective,” and winked. “Only question is why would Kite-Man kidnap The Condiment King’s kid?”

“I have no idea.” Tim shook his head. “Guys, maybe we should call in Batman?”

“What? No way, man! This is _our_ case!” Kon protested. “Anyway, it looks like, judging by that house we were in, that maybe Kite-Man didn’t exactly get away so easily. He left one of his kites behind.”

“Want me to rush in? I can rush in,” Bart volunteered, pointing toward Kite-Lair.

Tim declined. “We shouldn’t take any chances. Let’s look around the premises first.”

Bart sighed dramatically and whined, “all we ever do is look around!”

Kon ruffled his younger friends hair. “Let’s follow the Timster’s lead on this, little dude.”

* * *

A few binocular views later, the team managed their way into Kite-Lair. There were kites of all kinds everywhere, but also more signs of a struggle. Kites on the floor, bookcases overturned, books on the ground. Kon picked up a book and let out a soft chuckle. He held it up to his friends revealing the book title of “ _How To Attach Kites To Yourself And Terrorize Innocents_ ” by K.I. Teman.

“This doesn’t look right,” Tim said while looking around. “This place is a mess.”

A noise alerted the boys, and they turned toward a hallway at the other end of the room. _Splat_ and _blurp_ followed by “AHH!” and “ARGH!” Then a baby crying.

The boys ran to the hall and stopped at the scene before them. Two men fighting, and a baby between them. The Condiment King on one end, shooting off weaponized cannisters of ketchup and mustard, with Kite-Man on the other end of the room, trying to fly away with a damaged kite.

“I got it!” Tim proclaimed. “Kite-Man must have kidnapped a baby who he thought would have high enough connections in order to fetch a nice ransom. But he didn’t know that the baby’s father was The Condiment King. The Condiment King went looking for his son, which at first led him to Kite-Man’s house that we visited earlier. There, they got into a battle, which is why Kite-Man’s kite ended up left behind. He managed to escape but Condiment King followed him back here, to Kite-Lair.”

“So do we get involved or just let them duke it out?” Kon asked, raising a thumb at the battling supervillains.

“Well, we have to save the baby, at least,” Tim replied.

“Condiment King was just trying to rescue his son,” Bart said. “We should help him.”

But just as the boys got into their battling positions, a voice from behind startled them.

“Not so fast!” the voice boomed, with rainbow colors shining around the room.

The heroes turned around to this new voice entering the fray, and the puzzle got even more puzzling.

But Bart smiled.

“I _knew_ it was Crazy Quilt!”


End file.
